Freedom to Love
by nhutcheson
Summary: Finnick's life in his death. Finnick Odair one shot


Someone once said, there is no greater love than to lay down one's life for his friends.

Where are the others? I rack my brain trying to place them around me, but I just can't. They were right behind me.

All too well I can place the cry. I've only heard it a few times in my life. In the arena, where the cry was only barley heard, covered by the screams of my loved ones. On the beach when he slept, plagued by the night mares that would never leave him. In the hospital when he thought no one would hear him. No, I knew that cry all too well. I couldn't leave the person it belonged to alone.

I shone my flash light into the hole behind me. My heart stopped when my eyes found Finnick fighting a losing battle for his life. Blood, sweat, and tears covered him completely. He cried out, again, and this time so did I.

Can't leave him. I lowered one foot onto the ladder, every cell in my body ready to save my best friend.

"No Katniss!" Gale ripped me back onto the ground. I screamed and fought against him. I kicked at him and called him names, trying to reach my dying friend.

Finnick looked up, eyes wide. it was like his life was not only passing by his eyes...but mine, too. I could see the mast of his sail boat against a clear blue sky. Mags smiling at him. A parachute that would save his life. Waves crashing over rocks and rolling onto two pairs of feet. Annie in her wedding dress. His sea green eyes as he stared at the ocean.

Then it was gone, just like that. He gasped in pain as life left him.

I cried as he left me.

Finnick was the only person who understood me. He understood my night mares and why I cried when Peeta wasn't with me and why I did when he was. He understood the pain of missing someone so much that is physically hurt. He knew what it was like to hold others' lives in your hands. He knew what to say to calm me. He knew how to be my friend and make me smile when I felt like hiding away.

Those sea green eyes.

I remember when I thought that they just belonged to a cocky pretty boy who never cared for anyone but himself. I remember when I aimed my arrow right between those eyes, and something told me to lower it. I remember watching those eyes cry threw my own tears. And now, every single day of my life, I would remember the color of those sea green eyes looking up at me with love and begging me to be strong.

I squeezed my eyes shut. His laughter rang with joy in my ears.

Finnick's life was one filled with too many pains. He didn't deserve the Games. He shouldn't have been made a killer. Shouldn't have been forced into his string of Capitol lovers, just to protect the people he really did love. He didn't deserve to watch Annie walk a tight rope of sanity every day.

No, Finnick deserved a life of timeless happiness. One where the Games never ruined him. One where he loved Annie with reckless abandon and passion. One where he never had to fake what he was feeling or become a pawn to the Capitol. One where the only thing people thought of when they heard his name was about his heart of flawless gold and warmth. One where his sea green eyes only shed tears when he saw Annie walk down the isle, or when he held his son for the first time. Finnick deserved a life of deep love.

I saw him, in my mind, standing on the beach with his head slightly lifted to the sky. His eyes were closed and his tan arms extended, letting the wind play on his face and whip his golden hair. A smile crept into place as the waves rolled over his feet.

My next few thoughts hit me like a time bomb: Finnick had all those things.

Finnick had the love of his life there for him every moment he lived. He never lost himself in all the Capitol madness. He loved so endlessly because he had known greater pain. When I saw Finnick, I saw my best friend. Finnick was who he was because of those horrid Games.

Finnick Odair was never ruined, just built to love. Built by years of secrets and favors, tears and trials, just to obtain the one thing he loved almost as much as Annie:

the freedom to love freely.


End file.
